DIY Christmas Village Using $1 Birdhouses

Hi, I'm Sheri, welcome back to Canterbury Cottage, it's the first week of October and it's finally starting to feel like fall here in the Midwest, so you know what that means, it's time to get started on our Christmas crafts. That's right, Christmas supplies are now available in Hobby lobby. and Dollar Tree and we better get what we need now because we all know good things will be gone before you know it. Today I'll show you how to make Christmas houses

using

the dollar bird houses you can buy at Dollar Tree. Walmart or Michael's, this is a really fun and inexpensive project, and these houses end up looking so adorable that I can't wait to show you how they turned out, so let's start selecting bird houses for your Christmas

village

, avoid the pentagon shaped ones that always They remind us of a birdhouse.

I wish I had seen Michael's

birdhouses

before buying several at Dollar Tree and Walmart. Before painting your houses, remove the stickers and the small bird perch. I also recommend removing the foundation with the base removed, it will look more similar. a miniature house and less like a birdhouse. I cut one of the houses in half with my miter saw to attach it to another house and create the look of an attached shed. I attached it to the side with the hole but it didn't completely hide the hole so I used some wood filler to fill in the rest.

I chose the traditional Christmas colors of red, green, and white and painted my houses with chalk paint I had on hand in those colors. I painted the ceilings in various shades of brown chalk paint. I used more rustic colors on the two houses I had glued together because I wanted them to look like a farmhouse to create pedestals for my houses. I cut pieces from an old fence post and then dry brushed each piece with a little white chalk paint to give it a slightly snowy appearance with a dry brush, you should rub your brush on a paper towel and remove most of it. of the painting.

I also used this technique on house roofs to create a background for my farmhouse. I drew some simple mountain shapes on a piece of wood and then cut them out with my jigsaw. I attached the mountains to a piece of 2x6

using

super glue. When the glue was dry, I drilled holes and permanently attached the two pieces with wood screws. I painted everything with a little beige. Gray chalk paint when the paint was dry I drew some snow peaks on the top of each mountain and then painted it with white chalk paint and dry brushed the two by six when the white paint was dry I applied a little modification on the snow spikes and then sprinkled some artificial snow with the houses and bases painted.

I was ready to start adding doors and windows and other architectural features to each tiny house. I drew evenly spaced straight lines on the roof of one of the houses and then filled them in. I keyed it in with a scallop design using my hot glue gun when the hot glue cooled I went over the ceiling again with another coat of white chalk paint with the birdhouse holes on the back. I used a ruler to draw the location of the doors and windows on what would become the front of the house to create the windows, went over the pencil lines with a white paint pen, and then filled in each small square with a paint pen. black.

I had to go over the white lines a couple of times to get good coverage, but the black pen worked perfectly in one coat. I used my miter curtains to cut small pieces of popsicle sticks to create shutters and doors that I attached to the house using Starbond superglue on some of the houses. I left the shutters and doors in their natural wood and painted some of them in coordinating colors. I also take this as an opportunity to go over the white window panes one more time. I wanted to add additional architectural features to make each home unique. domes I cut the corners from a small square of plywood and then glued them to the ceiling.

I also cut two small squares from a popsicle stick to glue together as a roof for each dome and then painted each piece of popsicle stick the same way. color the rest of the roof and the dome with the same white paint as the rest of the house to create a porch. I cut two small strips of the popsicle stick about the same size as the shutters and then arranged them in a triangular shape on top. The door and joined them together using Starbond super glue. I painted the porch with the same color chalk paint as the door and shutters on a different house.

I used the rounded end of the popsicle stick to create an awning to match the scalloped roof. I attached it with super glue and a little hot glue and then painted it white to match the ceiling. I wanted to create a porch for the farmhouse so I cut a rectangle from a large popsicle stick and hot glued it on top of the door and then cut out two. very thin strips of popsicle sticks that I glued to the ceiling to create little posts. The accelerator spray that makes the super glue dry instantly was crucial in creating these little porch posts.

I painted the porch roof to match the roof of the house. I cut a stick into small pieces and hot glued them to the shed to make it look like a pile of logs. I cut small triangles out of colored paper and hot glued them to a piece of thread. I attached the string to the porch with hot glue and hung it as a small banner to create a wreath. I cut the hair off one of those pine stems and formed a small piece into a circle that I then hot glued to the house to embellish the wreaths.

Or I added a baker's bow. twine or glued some of those little sparkly foam balls from Dollar Tree. The roof of this house seemed very rustic to me, so I made a trellis out of small pieces of popsicle sticks that I glued directly to the house and then attached a fake plant stem to create a vine for the trellis and create a planter. I used another small strip of wood and glued it under the window, then cut out small pieces of greenery and hot glued them to the top of the small strip. Because of the domes, the hole in this house was on the side and not the back, so I cut a small strip of wood to cover it.

I printed an image of small bricks that I cut out and glued to the piece. of wood using mod podge I cut off the excess paper with scissors and a knife, then I wrapped another small piece of wood in the brick paper and hot glued it to the side of the house to imitate the look of a fireplace, finally I glued on a small pillow filled with smoke for the other houses, I simply made a hole in the roof and placed a black wood screw to serve as a chimney because I want my little houses to light up.

I made small holes in each window pane. You can enlarge the holes if you want more light to shine after drilling the holes. I touched up the paint on the window panes with my black paint pen. Now I was ready to attach the houses to the bases I had painted earlier. I super glued the base of the house and sprayed the wood base with accelerator and then joined the two together, then went over the entire base of the house with hot glue and sprayed fake snow on the glue while it was still hot. I did the same thing where the house met the roof to fill the small opening there, I applied spray adhesive to the roof of each house and then sprayed fake snow on the roof before the adhesive dried, I applied a little mod podge on others areas where I wanted to apply some snow, the next step was to add trees and other exterior features to my wooden bases to create a tree from a stick.

I made a hole in my wooden base and then put the stick in the hole with a little hot glue. I also applied heat. I glued the branches together so the fake snow would stick to them later. I added a tire swing made from a black painted metal washer. I used the same process to attach the trees with a bristle brush. I removed the small wooden round from the bottom and then inserted the tree into the I drilled a hole with some hot glue to create a ladder. I cut a couple of round craft sticks very small, but toothpicks would work too.

I glued the steps with super glue, but if you don't have accelerator, I would recommend using hot glue to create. a rustic fence I cut a stick into several half inch long pieces, then I drilled holes in my base where I wanted the sticks to go, then I inserted a stick into each hole using a little hot glue, I took a long strand of florist wire and ran I hung it between and around each of the sticks when I got to the last stick, I repeated the process and went back until I reached the first stick, I applied some spray adhesive and then sprinkled some artificial snow.

I also glued on a little bird and a little deer, you can find them with miniature Christmas decorations or with items for dollhouses and fairy gardens. I don't like to go overboard with artificial snow because it can get quite dirty. I prefer to stick some miniature snowballs in random places to add a little variety to this house. I decided to add a bush made from a small piece of greenery. I also decided to make a fence out of pieces of a popsicle stick to add to another house. I thought the wooden bases of the houses were a bit visible. simple, so I printed out the lyrics to some Christmas songs.

Remember the wooden bases I took from the bottom of the

birdhouses

. They were the perfect size to place on the front of each pedestal, so I used mod podge to decoupage the Christmas. letter from that piece of wood, then hot glued it to the front center of the fence post pedestal when the mod podge was completely dry, sanded the edges to remove the extra pieces of paper, put nails in the corners of the plate just so that it could be seen. and then I applied a protective top coat of mod podge to brighten the houses. I bought the battery operated yellow fairy lights from Dollar Tree using the bird hole in the back of the house.

I inserted all the fairy lights into the house and then hot glued the battery box to the back of the fence post pedestal, if you don't want to attach your houses to a base, the battery fits inside the houses more large from Walmart for the farm. I made holes in the mountains and glued the battery boxes together. At the back of the mountains, I took the last bulb from the barn light string and attached it to a stick to create an outdoor light post which is a thumbtack stuck into the top of the stick initially when I started making these.

Christmas houses I had every intention of selling them at my booth, but then I put them on my shelf and I saw them lit up at night and they were so cute and I thought, oh my gosh, I guess I'll have to keep them like that. I hope you make some for yourself because not only are they super cute but they were also super fun to make and now I'm really looking forward to more Christmas crafts so let me know in the comments what kind of projects you would like. to see me try it in future videos well that's all for today as always thank you very much for being here until next Tuesday bye bye for now